Section 17

17. Various considerations explain why the Souls going forth
from the Intellectual proceed first to the heavenly regions. The
heavens, as the noblest portion of sensible space, would border with
the least exalted of the Intellectual, and will, therefore, be first
ensouled first to participate as most apt; while what is of earth is
at the very extremity of progression, least endowed towards
participation, remotest from the unembodied.

All the souls, then, shine down upon the heavens and spend there
the main of themselves and the best; only their lower phases
illuminate the lower realms; and those souls which descend deepest
show their light furthest down- not themselves the better for the
depth to which they have penetrated.

There is, we may put it, something that is centre; about it, a
circle of light shed from it; round centre and first circle alike,
another circle, light from light; outside that again, not another
circle of light but one which, lacking light of its own, must borrow.

The last we may figure to ourselves as a revolving circle, or
rather a sphere, of a nature to receive light from that third realm,
its next higher, in proportion to the light which that itself
receives. Thus all begins with the great light, shining
self-centred; in accordance with the reigning plan [that of
emanation]
this gives forth its brilliance; the later [divine] existents
[souls] add their radiation- some of them remaining above,
while there
are some that are drawn further downward, attracted by the splendour
of the object they illuminate. These last find that their
charges need
more and more care: the steersman of a storm-tossed ship is so
intent on saving it that he forgets his own interest and never
thinks that he is recurrently in peril of being dragged down with
the vessel; similarly the souls are intent upon contriving for their
charges and finally come to be pulled down by them; they are
fettered in bonds of sorcery, gripped and held by their concern for
the realm of Nature.

If every living being were of the character of the All-perfect,
self-sufficing, in peril from no outside influence the soul
now spoken
of as indwelling would not occupy the body; it would infuse
life while
clinging, entire, within the Supreme.